Steph stood by and watched in horror as Hell surrounded her. Then it was her turn to face the demons.
The woman who said she had diabetes was now on her feet and snarling like a hungry wolf. She leapt through the air and came down on top of Steph like a falling piano. For a second, all Steph could see was stars. Then her vision filled with the snarling, monstrous face of the woman on top of her. I’m going to die. I’m never going to do the things I dreamed about. I‘ll never open my own business. I’ll never see Harry again.
The regrets flooding through Steph’s head were enough to spur her into action. She shoved both her hands up and grabbed the sick woman by the ears. She wrenched and twisted, managed to pull the chomping teeth away from her face. The woman was strong, though, and Steph was already beginning to weaken. What got into these bitches? Steph looked left and right for something to save herself with. Bryan was nearby, but he was battling with his own attacker. Mike was dead and so were dozens of other people. Is this really happening?
To her side was the bride-to-be’s dildo hat. It must have fallen from her head when she killed Mike. Steph moved her hands away from her attacker’s ears and grabbed the woman under her chin. She dared pull one hand away and reached for the bright red dildo on the floor beside her. She grasped the veiny shaft and yanked it towards her. Been a while since I’ve done that, thought Steph as she shoved the rubber phallus into her attacker’s snapping jaws. She shoved the dildo into the woman’s throat as deeply as you could, until nothing but the base could be seen. The woman still fought with Steph, though, ignorant of the fact she no longer had the ability to breathe. Her screeching became a choked mumble as the dildo lodged in her throat. Her face went bright red and then deep purple.
The woman collapsed on top of Steph and stopped moving. Steph rolled the body away and sat up. She looked down at the woman she’d just killed and sighed. I feel for you, hun. I could never deepthroat either.
Before she had time to take a breath, Bryan dragged Steph to her feet. “We need to get the hell out of here,” he said. “It’s gone Hellraiser 3 in here.”
Steph took in the bar and was unable to blink. Blood and saliva filled the air like mist, while twitching arms and legs knotted together so that she could no longer make out individual people. She saw Cassie, lying torn open on the bar. She was gurgling blood and begging for help, but nobody could help her.
Steph grabbed Bryan’s arm. “Come on. We have to make it through to the back.” They ran towards the back of the bar, cutting a wide berth around the chaos of the dance floor. The door to the back was thick, wooden, with a magnetic lock. Steph skidded to a halt in front of the keypad and began entering the code.
A spotty teenager in a paisley shirt flew at Bryan and the two of them knocked Steph aside before she managed to unlock the door. She caught her balance and immediately grabbed at the younger man. Bryan managed to free his arms and throw a punch. The teenager rocked backwards, but thrashed his head and let out a screech.
He dove at Bryan with his hands out like claws. Bryan ducked out of the way but tripped and fell to the floor.
Steph cursed and prodded at the keypad again. She had to get away from the bar. Everyone had gone insane. It was the hen party that was sick, so why is that teenager attacking Bryan? Is he sick too?
Beep beep beep beeeep!
The staff door clunked and the magnetic lock disengaged, but Bryan was still on the floor, battling with the teenager.
Goddamnit. Steph crouched down and took off her heels. The six-inch maroon stilettos were her favourites – but when needs must…. She swung one of her shoes round and aimed it at the teenager’s temple. It hit the soft section of his skull with a sickening crack and the boy fell away from Bryan.
Bryan clambered to his feet as quickly as he could.
Steph opened the staff door and bundled him through, just as a crazy hen threw herself against the other side with a thud.
Bryan bent over, panting. “W…what the hell?”
“Hell is the right word. Those people were like demons.”
“Or zombies,” Bryan added.
Steph nodded. ‘Zombies’ is as good a word as any. Except they’re not dead. They’re more like…infected.
Bryan straightened up and looked around. “What is this place?”
“The staff corridor. The cellar is downstairs and there’re two employee flats above us. Straight ahead is the staffroom. Do you still have your mobile?”
Bryan shook his head. “I dropped it. Is there a landline in this place?”
Steph shook her head. “No. The phone is in the office, but that’s at the other side of the bar. We’d have to go outside again.”
“Fuck that.”
“Double fuck it.”
“Can we try the flats upstairs? Maybe they have a phone?”
“Maybe.” It was a good idea, so Steph led Bryan up the stairs to the two doors, each of which led to a separate flat.
Bryan tried the handles, but muttered. “Locked.”
Steph shrugged. “You’re a man, aren’t you? Act like one.”
Bryan smirked. He got the hint and took a step back. He unleashed a kick at the door on the left. It busted open in a single try.
Steph pursed her lips and nodded. “Impressive.”
“Well, I did do a course on door kicking at college.”
“Cute and smart. Lucky me.”
Bryan grinned. “After you, m’lady.”
Steph stepped through into the flat. It belonged to Cassie, but the girl was dying or dead. Her privacy didn’t much matter anymore. Steph still felt bad, though, as she snuck into the barmaid’s living space.
The small lounge was a mess. Clothes lay everywhere and a cracked glass coffee table played host to both a bong and a powder-stained compact mirror.
“Looks like your colleague liked to party,” said Bryan, prodding the bong with his finger. The glass pot wobbled but stayed upright.
“Doesn’t look like she has a landline,” said Steph. “And she always has her mobile on her. She spends most of her shifts texting.”
The sounds of chaos downstairs died down slightly, but the sound of screeching was still prevalent. “What happened, do you think?” Bryan asked.
Steph shook her head. “There was a hen party. The women were sick…real sick.”
“You think they brought some fucked-up disease in here with them?”
“How should I know? That teenager who attacked you had it, too. He was like a wild animal.”
Bryan folded his arms. “You think he caught it?”
“I don’t know anything. I guess we will just have to stay here until help arrives. The police are going to have a field day when they get here. I swear there must be over a hundred dead on that dance floor.” She felt like crying.
Bryan nodded and approached her. “It’s okay. We’re safe. You did good out there. You got us out.”
Steph nodded. She smiled at Bryan and was glad he was there. If she was alone she might have freaked out a lot worse. Thank God he was there when the shit hit the fan.
Bryan placed a finger beneath her chin and looked into her eyes. Unlike the drunken guy who had come on to her, Bryan’s eyes were dark and brown. She felt herself falling into them.
He kissed her. It was nice.
But she pulled away. Right now, the last thing on her mind was making out. She had just witnessed a slaughter. Also, she somehow felt like she was betraying Harry. It was weird to think of him at that moment, but perhaps it meant she wasn’t over him yet. Bryan is cute, but I really don’t want to get into anything right now.
Bryan looked at her, seeming somewhat hurt by her rejection. “I’m sorry,” said Steph. “It’s not you.”
Bryan frowned irritably. “Then what is it?”
Steph frowned back at him. “It might have something to do with all of the dead people downstairs. Maybe I’m weird, but that doesn’t quite do it for me.”
She’d been harsher than she’d
intended and the wound inflicted was clear on Bryan’s face. “Hey,” he said. “We’re stuck in here for God knows how long. I just thought we could pass the time.”
“Oh, lovely,” said Steph. “Nice to know I’m useful for passing time.”
Bryan touched her under the chin again. “You know what I mean.” He leant in to kiss her again.
She shoved him backwards. “Hey, take the hint. Now is not the time.”
Bryan advanced on her again. His face had become unkind. “Now is the perfect time. We might be dead later if those lunatics get inside.”
Steph backed away. “It’s not happening. Deal with it.”
Bryan snarled. “I saved your life, you fucking bitch. I’ve been sticking up for you all night, ever since that drunken twat came at you.”
Steph was getting angry. She clenched her fists and stood her ground. “That gives you the right to do what you want, does it? You men are all the same.” Except for Harry.
“You’re damn right it gives me the right.” Bryan grabbed a hold of her and started kissing her neck. She fought to escape his grasp, but he was too strong.
“Let go of me,” she demanded. She hated the frightened twinge that had found its way into her voice.
“Only if you stop struggling.”
“Never.” She managed to bring her knee up between his legs.
Bryan lurched backwards and moaned, cupping his testicles. But it didn’t take him long to recover. He grabbed Steph by her hair and dragged her towards him. Then he backhanded her across the face and sent her to the floor. Blood trickled from her nose and dripped down into her mouth. She spat it out onto Cassie’s carpet. Bryan stared down at her balefully. Lust had taken over him as quickly as rage had taken over the hens. He began to unbuckle his belt.
Then he descended on her. “Struggle and you’ll end up ugly.”
Steph closed her eyes as he fiddled with the buttons on her jeans. She winced as his hot breath and tongue filled her mouth. I can’t believe this is happening to me. What did I do to deserve this? He can’t do this. I don’t want him to. I’m Harry’s girl.
Steph’s eyes snapped open and she grabbed a hold of Bryan and brought him close to her. “That’s it,” he said. “Get with the program, luv.”
“Get with this!” She snarled and bit down on his neck as hard as she could. For a moment she wondered if she had the caught the same illness the hen party had, but as Bryan pulled away, she did not wish to eat any more of his flesh.
Bryan was growling. The lust in his eyes had turned to murderous rage.
Steph rolled onto her side, reached up over the coffee table and snatched at the heavy glass bong.
Bryan descended on her again, his fists raised, his face a mask of fury.
Steph smashed the bong against his head. She didn’t know if the cracking sound came from the glass or his skull. He fell down dead on top of her, either way, with his pants around his ankles.
I’m done with dating, she thought to herself as she squirmed from underneath the dead man. You just can’t trust a man not to try and kill you.
She sat down on the room’s sofa and waited for the police to arrive. She needed to report the murder and hoped they would believe her story. If anything, they would be more interested in the chaos on the dance floor than an attempted rape upstairs in the flat.
But, almost six hours later, it was not the police who arrived but the Army, and they weren’t at all interested in Bryan. They were only looking for survivors. What happened on the dance floor was not an isolated incident. The sickness was everywhere. The infected were everywhere.
Steph went with an Army Sergeant named Harrison and joined two-dozen other survivors inside a requisitioned city bus. She sat at the back and wondered if she’d ever see Harry again. She thought probably not.
OUTBACK PAT
The watering hole would be dry by the time Pat left, at least that was his hope. It had been days since he’d been in the company of anything without a tail and even longer since he’d had a beer. He sipped the amber nectar and let out a satisfied sigh. Christ, that’s good. I’ve been away from your teat too long, mistress.
Pat spent most of his days in the bush, collecting the skins of whatever he could trap. Snakes and crocs were his bread and butter, but possum and dingo pelts fetched a few dollars back in Adelaide and he could sell the meat to the Abbos. The skinner’s life was a solitary one, but the only one he knew. The dirt and stone of the outback were his home – but the local watering holes were his vacation spots.
“Another beer, Pat?” Ralphie, the barman, asked.
“Does a Koala shit up a tree?”
“You’d know better than me, mate? Another beer coming up, though.”
Pat nodded his thanks and sipped the last of his current lager. He always felt sad at the end of every pint, but satisfied and happy at the start of every new one. It was like a metaphor for life. One pint ends and another begins. The eternal piss-up in life’s lonely saloon. God pours the beer and we drink it.
Ralphie slid a new pint towards him and headed off to serve the bar’s only other customer – tarfinger Marge. The old dear drank more than even Pat did and seemed to turn up in dive bars all over the outback. She always had a fag between her yellow fingers and a face like a yard of tripe.
The sun was dying and the purple haze of twilight was descending. Pat decided to take his beer outside. He always liked to watch day give way to night. One bunch of critters went to bed while another bunch came out of their hidey-holes. It was like nature’s changing of the guard.
He shoved open the rickety door of the bar and stepped out onto the sandy floor of the bush. The sun was almost gone, but the heat still danced on the horizon and brought beads of sweat to his forehead. A pair of rats skittered away from behind the building’s bin store as he approached, but he walked past them and headed towards his banged-up truck. When he reached it, he pulled open the rickety driver’s door and climbed inside. Sitting on the tatty leather of his seat was enough to make him sigh with pleasure. The contours of his backside had truly made the seat his own. It was almost part of him after so many years bouncing around the bush together. Heaven is a well-worn seat.
Pat took a long swig of his larger and peered out the windscreen at the dying sun. Oranges, purples, greys, and blacks mingled like a painter’s canvass. It was beautiful, and he never got tired of seeing it. If God walked the earth, he would choose to live in the bush, I have no doubt. If ever there was proof of God’s work it’s here.
A couple of flies fluttered through the open space where the truck once had a side window. Glass didn’t last long on the bumpy, rock-strewn terrain of the outback. Pat swatted them onto the dashboard and wiped their guts on his jeans. Bloody midges. Then he eased himself back into his seat and closed his eyes. The beer had settled him, like it always did, and now he fancied a nap. He took the time to reflect, and when a person reflected, only the bad things came to mind.
His only real regret in life was his son, Sally - Salvatore. Pat had never been close to his mother. They had met at an Italian bar in the city and carelessly made a baby. Pat had tried to step up and be a father, but Sally had been a puzzle he could not solve. The boy was cheeky and manic, always getting into scrapes. At first Pat found it endearing, seeing much of himself in the boy, but once Sally hit his teens, his childish antics didn’t mature with him – in fact they had grown darker in intent.
Sally had been a womaniser, screwing women left and right, but he would do so via false promises. The young girls would arrive on Pat’s doorstep, crying, pleading, and swearing that Sally loved them. Sally would just laugh in their faces and move onto the next. It made Pat feel a little sick, to be honest. Women should be respected, if not revered. Pat had not always been the most honourable of men, but he had never made a woman cry. Sally seemed to do so regularly and with a certain degree of pleasure. I swear that kid enjoys causing pain.
Pat had been a mechanic back then, tinkering with
engines and machines, making a few bucks here and there to buy beers and bacon. Sally and his mother lived close by. The neighbourhood was poor, but friendly. The only person to dislike was Pat’s son.
Eventually the fathers and brothers of all of the spurned young girls started arriving to meet with Sally. Eventually there had even been shouted accusations of rape and beatings. That was when Sally took off – seven years ago. Where he went, Pat had no clue. The thing that hurt the most was that he didn’t really care. His son was a selfish, impulsive man, with no friends and many enemies. As much as Pat had tried to motivate Sally into being a better man, he had failed utterly. The last thing Sally did before disappearing was steal Pat’s life savings from the safe in the bedroom. $18,000, a lifetime of odd jobs and repair work. If Pat had kept it, he would be driving a truck much nicer than the one he did now. But somehow that might have been worse.
After Sally disappeared, Pat decided to move out of his rented house and live in his truck. Now, the old Toyota pick-up had been his home for nearly a decade. He wouldn’t be the same without it. Living away from society, out in the bush, was a life he could never give up. Despite the disappointment and the heartbreak, Sally leaving had been a blessing. Is that dreadful to think? He’s my son.
Pat was pulled away from his thoughts by another handful of buzzing flies. He sat forward and swatted at them, pinning some to the dashboard, but missing others. What in tarnation?
Pat opened the door and hopped out of his truck. His boots hit the gravel and even more flies hit his face. He spat and spluttered, cursed.
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